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Overnight rising of bread dough

Is there any neg. affect on bread dough if left to rise over night in the frig. (the second rise) The recipe calls for a one hour rise and then after shaping the dough, a second rise until doubled in size. I'm thinking that if left to rise on the frig. overnight, the second proofing will occur slowly enough to not over proof?? Can anyone confirm this??

I have used this technique once or twice and the loaves came out okay. There is some concern about overproofing -- as even when the dough reaches the fridge temperature, it still does continue to grow (albeit very slowly). My advice to you is to let the loaves sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes to 1 hour and then bake as normal.

You didn't say why you were shaping and then proofing in the fridge. If it's time related, I much prefer to do my fermentations (risings) in the fridge and then when I want to finish them, I'll take the dough out, let it come back to room temperature, then shape, proof, and bake. This way I don't have to worry about overproofing the loaves and I can still break up the task of making bread over two days.

Well first of all, "Over night rising of bread dough" sounds like the start of a new terrorizing Steven King-ish story. Just very draculanesque--what's it gonna do in the middle of the night...it's in the kitchen...it's in the hallway...it's on the threshold... it's slugging itself across the floor... it's creaking the floor boards by your beddddd...its' AGHHHH

But anyway, umm, I always do the first rise in the frige then form it into whatever, then let it rise. And this second rise is slow maybe like three hours.

The last time I used the frige, I let it rise at room temp first, then did the second rise in the frige then got it out, let it expand a bit, formed, then baked (pizza crusts)

I did not like my second method there. I like it in the frige for the first rise.

'Course if you have carpeting the whole horror story goes out the window. Dough can't maneuver carpet. Game over.

Love it K8Memphis -- and what a relief that I have a carpet threshold between the kitchen and dining room! (Mind you, when I moved into this house the kitchen itself was carpeted -- and that was VILE! Let me tell you, the first time you drop an egg on kitchen carpet, motivation to put a new floor in goes WAY up!)

I have used this technique once or twice and the loaves came out okay. There is some concern about overproofing -- as even when the dough reaches the fridge temperature, it still does continue to grow (albeit very slowly). My advice to you is to let the loaves sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes to 1 hour and then bake as normal.

You didn't say why you were shaping and then proofing in the fridge. If it's time related, I much prefer to do my fermentations (risings) in the fridge and then when I want to finish them, I'll take the dough out, let it come back to room temperature, then shape, proof, and bake. This way I don't have to worry about over proofing the loaves and I can still break up the task of making bread over two days.

Well, the problem is time. Dinner on Sunday is relatively early and I want to make sure the loaves of bread have time to proof, bake and cool before leaving for dinner. So I think I will try your idea and see how it goes?? Thanks

Hi Stacy,I do this all the time and it works out really well. The very long rise helps to break down the protien and bran in the flour and, to me at least, it seems easier to digest. This is the recipe I use:

At about 8am place the warm water, yoghurt and yeast in a 3-pint bowl. Stir until dissolved then add the flour and mix to a smooth batter. Cover and leave on the kitchen worktop until 7pm or after. Then stir the malt (or sugar), add the flour and salt and stir to a sticky soft dough. Leave the dough for 15 minutes then lightly oil your hands and the worksurface and knead the dough for about 10 seconds. Repeat at 15 minutes intervals for 45 minutes then shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl lined with a heavily floured cloth. Leave chilled (at 4-6C) for 24 hours, then take out and leave until doubled in size.

Get the oven to 220C (fan assisted), roll the dough carefully onto a floured baking tray, slash the top, bake for 25 minutes then bake for 20 minutes longer at 180C.

Hi Stacy,I do this all the time and it works out really well. The very long rise helps to break down the protien and bran in the flour and, to me at least, it seems easier to digest. This is the recipe I use:

At about 8am place the warm water, yoghurt and yeast in a 3-pint bowl. Stir until dissolved then add the flour and mix to a smooth batter. Cover and leave on the kitchen worktop until 7pm or after. Then stir the malt (or sugar), add the flour and salt and stir to a sticky soft dough. Leave the dough for 15 minutes then lightly oil your hands and the worksurface and knead the dough for about 10 seconds. Repeat at 15 minutes intervals for 45 minutes then shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl lined with a heavily floured cloth. Leave chilled (at 4-6C) for 24 hours, then take out and leave until doubled in size.

Get the oven to 220C (fan assisted), roll the dough carefully onto a floured baking tray, slash the top, bake for 25 minutes then bake for 20 minutes longer at 180C.

Hummmm... Dan your recipe sounds yummy. But will the overnight proofing work with my recipe?? :-) I'm afraid to try something new when I'm the one making the bread for a family dinner. However, I will try yours too. My boyfriend just loves homemade bread and I haven't made any for him yet.

No need for a special bread recipe at all. I do this all the time with breads that need 3 rising periods (2 in the bowl & I after shaping). And I have refrigerated at any and all 3 stages depending on my schedule. Absolutely, let it go overnight. Take it out in the AM and give it some time to come up to temp (heck, I've even skipped that part too), into the oven and it should be fine in time to cool for your early supper. Good luck and let us know how it all works out.

Overnight refrigeration works just fine, with pretty much any bread (I've often had to postpone baking until morning, because of fatigue or overly-long shifts or what have you). There's a small chance of the bread spilling over the pans/bowl, but you should know by about the 2-hour mark if that's going to happen (it seems to depend on how warm the dough was when it went into the fridge). Check your dough after two hours: if it is already right up to the rim of the bowl, or already at baking size in the pans, punch it down and re-shape it, then return it to the fridge. You'll be fine the next day.

You will find that your bread bakes to a beautiful reddish-gold, much nicer than it otherwise would have, and you will also get a fuller flavour. It will get a better oven spring if you begin to bake while it's still cold from the fridge (you'll have to slash the loaves to keep them from bursting). The only downside to this procedure, such as it is, is that the surface of the loaves will show a number of "blisters," where bubbles had formed in the dough.

I don't mind those, it just tells me that the dough was slow-fermented for better flavour. Some people have aesthetic issues with the appearance, though. To each his own; I'll take flavour any day.

Sorry, I forgot to say it will work with your recipe too (I thought it but forgot to type it ). Placing the dough in the fridge after the first rise is the best bet. If the dough still looks too puffy and on the point of collapse then reduce the yeast by a quarter next time.

As JFLinLA says, you can try it different ways, at any or all stages. But watching carefully and remembering for next time is the key to repeating your success or avoiding failure here. It's hard to exact as it will depend on your fridge temperature, starting dough temperature, the stage the dough is at when it goes in the fridge, the amount of liquid in the dough, so many things. But...it's easy once you get the hang of it.

Here's the way it works. When you mix the yeast, water and flour (plus any other ingredients) together you start a series of chemical and yeast/bacterial reactions that will speed up, slow down or stop according to the temperature. These changes will cause the dough to puff up with gas, the starch and protein to beak down and soften, and the natural sugar (called maltose) to get used up, to the point where the dough falls apart.

At room temperature this happens relatively quickly. But in the refrigerator, at say 40F (4C), this break down takes a long time to happen. Bakers often call this process the maturation of the dough, and will talk about dough being "young" or "old" according to how far along the process the dough is.

Ideally, just before the loaf goes into the oven, the dough should be midway in the maturation process. It should have puffed up, the starch and protein softened but still slightly elastic and springy (enough for one last burst in the oven), and with enough natural sugar so that the dough bakes to a golden colour.

Sorry, I forgot to say it will work with your recipe too (I thought it but forgot to type it ). Placing the dough in the fridge after the first rise is the best bet. If the dough still looks too puffy and on the point of collapse then reduce the yeast by a quarter next time.

As JFLinLA says, you can try it different ways, at any or all stages. But watching carefully and remembering for next time is the key to repeating your success or avoiding failure here. It's hard to exact as it will depend on your fridge temperature, starting dough temperature, the stage the dough is at when it goes in the fridge, the amount of liquid in the dough, so many things. But...it's easy once you get the hang of it.

Here's the way it works. When you mix the yeast, water and flour (plus any other ingredients) together you start a series of chemical and yeast/bacterial reactions that will speed up, slow down or stop according to the temperature. These changes will cause the dough to puff up with gas, the starch and protein to beak down and soften, and the natural sugar (called maltose) to get used up, to the point where the dough falls apart.

At room temperature this happens relatively quickly. But in the refrigerator, at say 40F (4C), this break down takes a long time to happen. Bakers often call this process the maturation of the dough, and will talk about dough being "young" or "old" according to how far along the process the dough is.

Ideally, just before the loaf goes into the oven, the dough should be midway in the maturation process. It should have puffed up, the starch and protein softened but still slightly elastic and springy (enough for one last burst in the oven), and with enough natural sugar so that the dough bakes to a golden colour.

Dan

Dan the man,

Thanks so much for the baking lesson. I need it. :-) Fortunately for me, my sister changed the time for dinner tomorrow to 4 so I will have plenty of time to proof and bake the same day. THANK GOODNESS!! I wasn't comfortable with changing anything about the recipe and serving it to anyone other than my family. YIKES!!!

But now that you have so throughly informed me as to how to proof overnight, I'll try it at home and see how it works. Thanks again.

I want to figure out the best way to proof bread overnight as a time-saver. Say I was making my dough in the evening.

I am assuming that it would not rise enough (first rise) if I just stuck it in the fridge right away after I kneaded it and left it there. But would it be better to let it rise for a couple hours and then put it in the fridge for the night? Or should I put it in the fridge right away, and then take it out in the morning and leave it out until it's doubled, then punch down, rise again, etc etc?

I want to figure out the best way to proof bread overnight as a time-saver. Say I was making my dough in the evening.

I basically do this with all my breads (except sourdoughs made from a natural starter), both to develop flavor and adjust the baking to my evening schedule. Mix and knead in the evening, pop in the fridge, then do punch down and second rise the next evening and bake. In fact, I usually only take out half my dough after the overnight rise, leaving the rest in the fridge for up to a couple of days. That way, I can bake a second loaf later in the week.

Using commercial yeast, I've always found that my breads get plenty of rise stored overnight in the fridge. (However, I haven't done this with my sourdoughs because my starter is still quite anemic, so I do one rise only--out of the fridge.)

I have seen instructions for letting it rise first before throwing it into the fridge, but I've always ignored it and the results have been fine.

I find overnight or longer in the fridge equivalent to about 2 hours at room temperature. For a yeasted dough it can go into the fridge straight after shaping. For naturally leavened sourdough you might want to leave it out for an hour or two first.

Of course this is over-simplified, since there are many different processes going on, each of which is differently temperature sensitive.
The dough does not go from room temperature to fridge temperature instantaneously, but gradually cools - hence the two hours.
At fridge temperature very little biological is going on. Some chemistry (for example the breaking down of starch to sugars by the acid environment) happens slowly, and some physical processes, mainly the diffusion and dissolution of CO2, and the exchange of CO2 and air in the outer dough layers, still happens. .
I prefer to bake direct from the fridge. The dough is stiffer when cold, which can make wet doughs easier to handle.

Retarded doughs, such as those overnight in the fridge have characteristic fine bubbles and often a redder crust, from the extra sugars.

Would this work? I make the dough, let it rise overnight in the fridge, then in the morning, punch it down shape for the second rise, go to work, come home from work, punch down, shape rise and bake?

That would make bread making easy.....

My breads usually require only two rises, so here's how my schedule typically goes:

Day 1 Evening: Mix and knead, place straight into fridge.

Day 2 Late Afternoon: Take out of fridge and leave for an hour or two so the dough is easier to work with. (I sometimes skip this step if I'm in a hurry.) Punch down, shape, rise and bake.

I'm not an early riser, so I usually bake right before going to bed. That gives the bread time to cool down and we have fresh bread in the morning.

Although slightly off-topic, another way to save time is to bake using the "cold start" method. Place proofed bread in cold oven, crank oven as high as it will go until it reaches the target temperature, then lower to target temp. Continue baking at target temp until bread is done.

You do need to keep a closer eye on the oven, of course, or set your timer based on how long it takes to reach the target temp.

Here's the way it works. When you mix the yeast, water and flour (plus any other ingredients) together you start a series of chemical and yeast/bacterial reactions that will speed up, slow down or stop according to the temperature. These changes will cause the dough to puff up with gas, the starch and protein to beak down and soften, and the natural sugar (called maltose) to get used up, to the point where the dough falls apart.

At room temperature this happens relatively quickly. But in the refrigerator, at say 40F (4C), this break down takes a long time to happen.

The key is that there are two processes going on: natural enzymes in the yeast breaking down the large starch molecules into smaller ones and into sugars, and yeast eating the sugars and producing C02 and alcohol.

Cold temperatures slow down the yeast process much more than they slow down the enzyme process. So delayed fermentation allows the enzyme reactions to progress much farther before the yeast has made the dough ready for the oven. Encouraging the enzyme reactions like this gives the bread much deeper, more complex flavors. It also provides more sugar for the yeast to do its thing.

All the best breads have historically used some version of this. Soakers, bigga, poolish, starters, old dough techniques, etc. etc. are ways bakers have allowed the enzyme reactions to progress more without the yeast progressing too far. The refrigerator technique is just a simple, modern version.

There are no rigid guidelines becausee your recipe and the temp of the room and your fridge are big variables. The simplest way to fine tune things to fit your time requirements is to change the amount of yeast. If the bread seems like it's rising too much overnight, just use a bit less yeast next time. That's about as scientific as this gets, as far as i know.

Mix the ingredients, knead slightly if you wish, cover and rest for 6 hours. Refrigerate for another 48 hours. (That is the longest I've tried to date, and may even push it further!)

Remove from refrigerator and leave on the counter for another 9 hours. Punch down and rest for another 2 hours. Bake. Results are as good (probably better) than the recommended straight 18 hour rise.

That's the abbreviated version, and maybe I'll post all of my NNTK experiments in the proper thread at a later date. But this should give you an idea of just how flexible and forgiving refrigerated dough is...

So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money. But when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness."

I glanced at Peter Reinhart's whole grain book at the bookstore, and it looks like the refinements of his technique should work for white breads, too.

Apparently he's taken the process to its logical conclusion, and leaves the yeast out entirely for the aging of the dough. then there's no race between the yeast and the enzymes, and no nead for refrigeration. the wet, yeastless dough just sits at room temperature overnight or as long as you can get away with without it spoiling. then the yeast goes in later and the bread rises normally.

I haven't tried it ... haven't even looked at the details. Has anyoned done this or any variations of it?

I downloaded the King Arthor Flour bagette lesson, according to the online lesson you make a poolish. 1 1/4 c. flour, 2/3 c. water, 1/8 t. active dry yeast. I mix and let it set for 12 hours (overnight) I can tell in the morning it had poofed up quite a bit, and was real goopy. I mixed in the rest of the ingredents, which was more flour water, yeast, and some salt this time. The dough was way, way dry, so I added more water (just a touch) put it in the food processor, pulsed a bit, let it rest for 20 minutes, then finished kneading in the food processor for another 2 minutes. The dough was real lumpy, but the directions said it would be. So I stuck it in the fridge, at 6 am. at 5 pm I came home from work, the dough had barely risen. I let it come to just a little cler than room temp took it out of the oiled bowl, and it was tough as nails, stringy, snapped like taffy when I tried to knead it....threw it out....

I followed the directions, what could have gone wrong?? Any ideas?

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